Keynote: Tom Hale – Survey Monkey #pubcon

Hey, hey! I hope you enjoyed your lunch because we’re about to start up again. This afternoon we have Tom Hale delivering our keynote. He’s from Survey Monkey and he’s gonna share tips and tricks for helping us maximize survey results. Tom’s up on stage and he has ENERGY and I love it.

He’s the president of Survey Monkey and he loves his job. Survey Monkey is a place where they power curiousity. Surveys are for intrinsically curious human beings.

Tom says we’re here because we want to win, and that winning is getting harder and harder. 6 out of 10 companies are new in the Fortune 10 in the last ten years. As marketers we have our own challenges.

Mobile Devices – short attentin spans

Changing SEO landscape – penguin, panda, etc.

Increasing ad costs

Understanding our audience

Number one concern for marketers is cross-channel attribution. We have more info at this time in human history than we have ever had. But when we’re swimming in a sea of data, we feel like we’re about to get pounded into the ocean floor and drown. The amount of data in the world for businesses is doubling every 1.2 years. You need to find the signal in that data.

Most of the data we have is backwards looking. It’s “what” data. It tells you what happened but not what’s going to happen. You want proactive, integrated, actionable “why” data. How do you unlock the signal in your data? You just need to ask. You need to turn voices into actionable data – why the traffic comes, why the sales comes.

StitchFix is your only personal sytlist. She started by surveying prospective customers to learn what their desires are and to help them find the one pair of jeans out there right for them. Now, she does that online – a fix arrives in the mail, you keep what you want, and send back what you don’t want. There is a survey implemented directly into the checkout that allows customers to ID what is most important to them. Over time, she’s able to learn what matters to the and act on itm. This helps win customer loyalty.

If you’re asking people questions, make sure you ask an open end question. Leave room for the signal to come through that you might not ask about. This will help you find hidden insights.

Netflix started as a DVD service, then went into streaming, then original content. We love Netflix. What drove the increase in views in January this year? Is it all the original content we hear about? No. It’s what the kids watch. The kids are the real bingewatchers. The data shows that what kids do is they go in their room with their iPad and watch Netflix shows over and over again. Once Netflix saw this, it created Birthdays On-Demand. When you start a marketing campaign, think about the survey data you would use to lead that marketing campaign.

Breakthrough Tips

Set a Topic: What are you curious about What are others curious about?

Think Mobile: Create a conversational survey experience

Respondent First: The first question you ask in any survey really matters. Invitation matters. Timing matters.

Art of asking: No jargon, no leading questions, less is more. Get feedback. Short surveys are dramatically better for completion rates and data quality. Keep it to 12 questions or less.